D&D (2024) BG3 and the new VTT

[payn]

Every six months or so, I have one of my online players get excited about some VTT or other. Then when we dig into how to do it, the user-unfriendliness of it (always the DM, but sometimes the players, too) always weans them off it.

The company -- probably well-funded -- that makes a robust VTT truly easy is going to do great business, because there are a lot of customers out there who find the existing VTTs merely "good enough" or -- probably many more people -- not worth the enormous hassle.

I love Foundry, but I know many folks dont have the patience to work with it. I get the power of a well functioning do no work VTT. Could WotC mess it up? Sure, but I dont think the bar is sky high either.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Could WotC mess it up? Sure, but I dont think the bar is sky high either.

I feel like you're underplaying the difficulty of getting this right.

This is something no-one has ever succeeded at, even with 2D, and WotC, are, apparently, aiming to do it with 3D, including 3D maps with elevation (and presumably slopes) and so on. There are bunch of not-great attempts at similar things on Steam.

WotC's advantage is, if what we heard from them last year is true, that they have literally 250 people working on this. That's a crazy number.

WotC's disadvantage is, if what we heard from them last year is true, that they have literally 250 people working on this. That's a crazy number.

The sheer number of people means they can do more, and faster, but also, they're just burning money, huge amounts of money literally millions upon millions. So they're both on a clock, and have to design a product capable of making millions upon millions of dollars, and absolutely will have to compromise the product's design in ways that will make it more suitable for making millions. With a team that large, working for a publicly traded company, you simply cannot wait until the product is perfect, just keeping on burning money - you have to kick it out the door ASAP.

The trouble is, TT RPGs are picky bastards. Very picky and very tetchy, and very pea-under-the-mattress. As we saw very recently with the OGL, they're capable of absolutely rioting if things aren't how they want them, and quite capable of not buying into a novel product. So the compromises they'll need to make to make this financially viable may well also make the product not actually popular with its audience. Thus making it not financially viable.

And one of the likely compromises in making it easy to use, making so simple it doesn't push people away like other VTTs is that it will be nigh-useless for homebrew material. But no, surely they won't do that, surely they have more sense, you say. I don't think so. I think it's very likely it'll launch with a very limited selection of WotC official adventures, not very well or completely implemented, and extremely limited homebrew adventure functionality. But it probably will have a bazillion microtransactions you can, and in fact kind of need to pay for in order to get models for your enemies and PCs. There's no way there will be able to keep that size team once it launches, so the speed of adapting product and adding stuff will also decline sharply after launch.

Because of the way WotC has chosen to do it, and the high-cost approach they've taken, WotC have given themselves a real challenge here. If they had a large indie/AA-size team of like, 15-40 people, they could probably have done this and taken as long as it took, and not had pressure to be ultra-profitable. But that doesn't seem to be the path WotC has taken here.

 

[ninjayeti]

I tend to agree with the OP. From what I have seen WotC seems to be counting on the "cool factor" of a 3D VTT to sell their product. But I am skeptical how impressive it will actually be for anyone who has played BG3 or really any modern CRPG. Particularly if (as seems likely) their VTT is more expensive or difficult to use as an actual TTRPG platform than the available options.

I'd agree with the posters who say there is room for a more intuitive, easy to use VTT in the market. But that doesn't seem to be WotC's goal - rather they seem to be leaning on the 3D angle as the killer feature that will draw customers away from the competitors. I am skeptical that they going to improve on the underlying VTT experience while also adding the complexity that will be needed to implement the 3D features.

I would have a lot more confidence if WotC set out to make the best 2D VTT, and once they had that dialed in they added the 3D stuff. I think the fancy graphics will get people to check it out, but if the underlying VTT experience is clunker than the alternatives no one is going keep running games on it.

 

[Clint_L]

I tend to agree with the OP. From what I have seen WotC seems to be counting on the "cool factor" of a 3D VTT to sell their product. But I am skeptical how impressive it will actually be for anyone who has played BG3 or really any modern CRPG. Particularly if (as seems likely) their VTT is more expensive or difficult to use as an actual TTRPG platform than the available options.

If it is accessible, then it will do well. If it isn't, it won't. DDB took me two minutes to understand. I spent a day on Roll20 and gave up. So there is a lot of range, here.

I don't the BG3 has anything to do with it, though. I think that part of the Dungeoncraft argument just completely misses the point and appeal of a VTT.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But I am skeptical how impressive it will actually be for anyone who has played BG3 or really any modern CRPG.

Indeed, we've seen it in action, and seen the slightly cartoonish and painterly visual design that they're going for, and frankly, it looks slightly outdated, style-wise, already. Specifically it's extremely reminiscent of the Pathfinder games (hahahahahahahaha yes), but more with more detailed assets. But ironically because of the cartoonish/painterly style (which in no way says "D&D", as noted if anything it says "Pathfinder"), the detail doesn't add anything, except pressure on your GPU.

Despite using UE5 (and possibly even Lumen), it manages to look "cheaper" than BG3, a game which basically looks like it's an enhanced edition of a game made 5-10 years ago lol (I say that with love, it's a great game).

So yeah I don't think anyone is going to be particularly impressed. Ironically it's partly because they've just crossed into looking fully like a videogame, so will be judged fully by videogame standards.

 

[DEFCON 1]

So yeah I don't think anyone is going to be particularly impressed. Ironically it's partly because they've just crossed into looking fully like a videogame, so will be judged fully by videogame standards.

Of any of the potential pitfalls... this point I think does have a bit of merit for at least a certain segment of the gaming population. We could almost think of it as the "Uncanny Valley" of online Dungeons & Dragons. The same way we consumers were more readily able to accept cartoon CGI of human faces in Pixar films versus attempts at 'photorealistic' human faces in other films. There does come that tipping point. The more WotC tries to make their VTT look like a video game engine... the stronger the judgement will be if they fall short, especially among those players for whom they lean more heavily in the video game space versus the tabletop space.

Now granted... there will probably be large swathes of people who are primarily from the tabletop space who won't care about the graphic fidelity one way or the other. So long as the player communication is strong, the rules implementation is on point, the UI and piece movement is easy and intuitive, and the whole "lobby" of the game to find tables and players online is a positive experience... how the graphics look for them will be several places down on their list of concerns. While comparing the VTT to BG3 would have it be seen as a pale imitation... the 3D models of the WotC VTT versus the pogs of our currently available VTTs could be a very wonderful upgrade for many players-- especially if you could customize your character miniatures.

So I agree there is a potential risk here for WotC by going full 3D... but I don't think we can say one way or another yet whether it was ultimately a mistake to make that jump.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think that the VTT will live or die by its usability. I think Professor DM misses that point. BG3 is a different beast, the tools needed to create levels and mods for BG3 are expert levels tools and much more than is needed to support a VTT. They are too complex for DMs.
If the VTT is easy to use it will do well.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The desperate grab for the bag is going to be the main issue. If it would be a reasonable subscription fee in line with other VTTs, that would be one thing, but if they get greedy and stupid and think they can pretend they've got an EA-like stranglehold that will allow aggressive monetization, they're going to have another encounter with the Humbling Stick.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

While comparing the VTT to BG3 would have it be seen as a pale imitation... the 3D models of the WotC VTT versus the pogs of our currently available VTTs could be a very wonderful upgrade for many players-- especially if you could customize your character miniatures.

The models are actually, detail-wise, kind of on-par with BG3, just extremely stylized. Which I think is maybe not a great plan, because they've intentionally made them look like minis, and they aren't animated, so why go so extremely heavy on detail, if you're looking a product to run on a multitude of machines? Not just mid-to-high end PCs and current-gen non-Switch consoles.

The desperate grab for the bag is going to be the main issue. If it would be a reasonable subscription fee in line with other VTTs, that would be one thing, but if they get greedy and stupid and think they can pretend they've got an EA-like stranglehold that will allow aggressive monetization, they're going to have another encounter with the Humbling Stick.

Given that monetization was literally one of the first things out of their mouth re: the 3D VTT (honest at least, I guess!), I think they're going to go pretty goddamn hard, at least on DMs, who I suspect they think are "whales", from the get-go, with the 3D VTT.

And you're probably right re: the Humbling Stick. Because whilst there will be some people willing to drop hundreds of dollars on virtual minis, dice, map sections and so on on a new service with an uncertain future, I don't think it's going to be the proportion or numbers that they have to be expecting to be investing AAA-type money in this.

 

[Reynard]

In general, I think the more features a VTT has, the less useful it is for my style of GMing. If I have to deal with lighting, animation and sound, for example, it is that much harder to create an encounter on the fly than if I just throw down a map, grid and tokens.

Moreover, I don't actually think BG3 says anything about the VTT, because they have different aims and people that want to co-op BG3 aren't necessarily looking for an actual D&D experience.